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Sticking Together

Monday 15th August 2011

One of the great things about regularly recording my thoughts is the incredible amount of subject matter available, even when it is no more than a few days between my ramblings! Like every single one of us Gooners I have my own opinion. I also very much appreciate it is not always the same as everybody else’s!

I write as I see it and try not to be influenced by anything outside. Only then I feel can I be accurate in my own personal thoughts.

Dealing with the most recent piece of news first, it seems if the formalities are completed and Cesc has gone to Barcelona.

Of course, like you I am deeply disappointed we are losing such a great player but for me, above all else, one player will NEVER be bigger than the club. I cannot believe any of you have not been tired (perhaps even bored) with the constant daily speculation and I hope this will finally put it to bed. We thank him for his considerable contribution to our great club of course, but if he is now at a different club I for one will definitely stop talking about him.

Newcastle is a great city to visit for a football weekender and never fails to provide top entertainment for us travelling fans.

The game of course is very much part of that and as frustrating as it was that we only came away with a point, I'm struggling to remember ever visiting St James Park before and being so incredibly comfortable throughout.

There are a couple of incidents worth talking about for me, both on and off the pitch. Firstly, Gervinho was tripped and it should have been a penalty. It is impossible to be so sure from high up in the away end but having seen the TV replays it was a penalty, it is as simple as that.

You cannot raise your hands on a football pitch these days so there was always a risk of a red card. It is so frustrating however, that yet again the aggressor and arguably cause of the whole incident has got away with it once again. For me there is something not quite right about that.

At the moment I find myself scratching my head a little about some of us fans. I use the word 'us' here because above all else I cannot understand why we are not sticking together.

Walking out of the ground on Saturday evening I had many discussions with some fellow fans. Good, constructive and even quite heated about where we are right now. I enjoyed them and walked away a lot more happy that deep down, we are all together.

Of course I can understand the frustrations and all the reasons for them. Even though many of you might think otherwise, I too am going through those same emotions.

For me however, when OUR team are on that pitch and worked hard to come away with a point from a potentially tricky opening day, we simply have to be unified in our support.

When we spend so much money to watch our team, I can totally sympathise with those who feel because of that they have the right to air their opinion in whatever way they see fit. In my opinion however, I do not understand the benefit during any match. That's the way I feel and I'm sorry if that offends.

People love to knock our great club but this is not a new thing. In years gone by and with squads far weaker than the one we have right now, the one thing that remained constant is the fact we all stuck together as fans. Over the last 25 years we have enjoyed trophies and almost constant European football. We have been more than lucky. To help continue that, we need to be part of a 'team'.

That starts with our hugely important first leg against Udinese on Tuesday evening.

We need to try and be the 12th man, not the opposite and make it seem like we are reduced to ten.

Come on you reds.

Frank

Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source15 Aug 2011

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